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Just fitting the ceramic balls into a Record hub will bring it up to USB standard.Replacing the standard steel bearing races and cones for CULT ones will indeed turn the hub into a CULT one as found in Bora U2 etc.

You will need some special tools to remove the races from the old hub and press the new ones in. These toools are available but aren't exactly cheap.

Do not try this on any of the Campa carbon hub as it will damage the carbon. Those hubs are pressed and glued into place so beware.

Ciao,

Last edited by fdegrove on Wed May 16, 2012 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have never seen an aftermarket ceramic bearing installation that has lasted more than 6months/10,000km or so.

DT190 freehub bodies with ceramic bearings do not stand up to offroad use. 240s do. Every aftermarket ceramic bearing that I have seen from Enduro, Ceramic Speed, etc has had a short lifespan.

Added to this my experience that high-end cup-and-cone bearings simply do not run as smoothly after any kind of servicing as they did originally, and I would hesitate to install new bearings purely for the sake of it.

We flat out refuse to install ceramic bearings in cup-and-cone hubs for several reasons. (a) it voids your warranty (b) they do not last as long and (c) in our experience, they do cause damage to the races. Fdegrove seems to have a different experience, but we have used, without success, ceramic bearing kits from enduro, ceramic speed and campy in record and dura ace hubs, and it has resulted rapidly worn races. Most of the installations were done by a mechanic with senior National team, Olympic and Protour experience. They did the same job on race wheels and BBs when he was working for the National team, with, he says, the same effect.

Record hubs are nicer than 99% of the hubs on the market. Why mess with something that works so well already?

Campy races are already harder than Shimano races. I've had one very good success with ceramic balls in a set of lower end 550s that did a lot of mileage (before I broke up with the owner...) However my own DA rear hub has done very poorly-but I suspect the mech who did the fitment screwed up, and replacing the DS cone on 7850s actually means an entire axle The Zonda wheels I had ran extremely well with ceramic balls. Did about 10,000 with my large mass before the rims started cracking. Wheels were still the nicest I've ever experienced. In bunch rides people were complaining I was free wheeling too much (loud campy ratchet....)

DT190 hubs run small bearings, and tiny freewheel bearings. Even steel bearings those sizes would not last well off road. Only plus is the steel bearings would be better sealed as ceramics do tend to have lighter sealing.

I'm surprised Tokyo drifter has seen short lifespans with ceramic speed, but I'm not surprised about enduro....

I'm not a fan of the one ceramic ball theory. The stiffer ball will not defect as much as the steel balls and hence take more load than the balls either side. This increased load on the one ball could increase fatigue in the race. This is how races typically fail with ceramic balls because they have a smaller contact patch and hence large pressure on the steel. You need good hard steel that can still take the fatigue.

Rest assured the theory is a valid one. I do agree with you that one should not put it into practice which is why I just threw it in as an example.I do not even know if such odd bearing exists.

@Tokyo Drifter: There's a lot of rubbish bearings out there but what I state is actual fact, scientifically proven fact.Naturally field experience may differ but if a bearing replacement is correctly executed I see no reason why it should be any different from a factory installed one. Especially so with cup and cone bearings.

On a more personal note, I've run Campa USB bearings since their inception on just a few drops of oil, no seals whatosever and that's it. They've seen the better part of 100.000 km and they're still like new.Same but less mileage so far for the CULT version + ceramic hybrid BB (a ISO square Ti axle running on CULT ceramics cups and cones!), pulley wheels etc. Not a single bearing has been replaced since.I am very certain that if full steel bearings would have done the same mileage under the same conditions they'd all have been replaced at least once by now. Not so the hybrids.Yes, they're top quality but then rubbish in rubbish out and that goes for full steel bearings just the same.

Ceramics hybrids need a little more care when installing, especially so the industrial cartridge types, as the balls can easily dent the races when hammered in (as I so often see done by even the most experience mechanic) but once installed they should run like forever in a bicycle.

fdegrove wrote:You will need some special tools to remove the races from the old hub and press the new ones in. These toools are available but aren't exactly cheap.

Do not try this on any of the Campa carbon hub as it will damage the carbon. Those hubs are pressed and glued into place so beware.

Fdegrove, do you have more information about servicing carbon-shell Campagnolo hubs?

I have Hyperon tubulars (pre-ultra) with steel races and bearing, and I'm planning on rebuilding them because they didn't feel totally smooth after cleaning and re-greasing. Tools and spare parts are ready, but now I'm scared to remove the old races after you mentioned the glue...